The Coming of Lord Zedd
by protector91
Summary: Spoilers for the 2017 film. The Evil Emperor Lord Zedd discovers Rita floating adrift in the N-51 Galaxy. With one of the Power Coins of Legend in his possession, he sets his sights on Earth and the power it holds.
1. Gold Fever

**A/N: Hi everyone. So I enjoyed the new Power Rangers movie way more than I expected and as I exited the theater this idea for a fic popped into my head. Of course spoilers will be present so don't read this if you haven't seen the movie. Hope you all enjoy. :)**

 **The N-51 Galaxy**

 **Many light years away from Earth**

How much time has passed? Days? Weeks? Months? Perhaps years. Rita Repulsa does not know. Rita Repulsa. Once a trusted warrior of the light, now lost to the dark. The dark void of space. Her power coin, one of the legendary six, kept her alive in a protective forcefield, but only in stasis. Doomed to remain adrift until she encountered a hazard that not even her powers could protect her from. Sometimes her brain activity would briefly spike if she passed something dangerous enough that it broke through the stasis. And when that happened she could only think one single thought.

 _Zordon…I AM worthy._

It was the one thing that kept her going when she first awoke on Earth after 65 million years and she knew it would keep her going as she went into stasis. So she continues to float through the endless reaches of space. A bright light from a sun even bigger than Earth's illuminating her. But as soon as the sun cast its light on the fallen warrior, a dark shadow eclipsed it. A red beam of light encircled Rita and began dragging her towards something; a spaceship. One far greater in size than Goldar and the Rangers' Megazord combined.

* * *

 **The Cargo Hold**

Rita's body sits alone in the cargo hold with only the light from her forcefield providing illumination until the cargo doors open. A mysterious figure enters the room and approaches her body. He reaches a hand towards her shield and it glows a darker shade of green the closer his hand gets to it. He retracts his hand and takes a step back.

"Isn't this interesting," he comments.

"Finster," a chilling voice calls out from behind him. Finster almost jumps at the sound of the voice. He keeps his composure, clears his throat, and faces his master.

"Yes, Lord Zedd?" Lord Zedd steps into the light; his body the thing of nightmares.

Despite how long Finster had served under Lord Zedd's command, he could never fight the cold shiver that runs up his spine whenever he sees his Emperor. Finster stands aside allowing Lord Zedd to inspect Rita's body.

"This is the power source you detected on Serpentera's radar?"

"I am sure with 100% certainty, my Lord. What gives this being her power, however, I cannot say." Finster's comment makes Lord Zedd grip his metallic staff tighter. "But I will have the answers you seek within the hour," Finster quickly adds.

Zedd loosens his grip on his staff, but Finster sees a faint glow of red in the visor that covers Zedd's eyes. "Then I suggest you get to it, Finster."

"Yes, right away my Lord." Finster bows to Lord Zedd. The Emperor leaves Finster to his work and he resumes inspecting Rita as closely as he can.

"Hmmm. I can only imagine what world could birth such power."

* * *

 **Angel Grove**

A jewelry store alarm blares. Inside the store, six teenagers stuff their bags with whatever they can; each of their eyes colored a menacing gold. In the corner of the store lay two police men out cold with nasty burn marks on their stomachs; an employee of the store kneeling beside them away from the thieves. They finish their collection and turn to the employee.

"Pleasure doing business with you," one says to her. "Let's go guys," he says to the others and they race out the front door.

"Hold it right there!" Someone yells and the group stops.

"Oh crap," one of them mutters.

They turn back to the store and see the five brightly colored protectors of Angel Grove standing on the roof; The Power Rangers. They all leap off the store and land in front of the criminals; each of them taking a fighting stance.

"Mastodon!"

"Pterodactyl!"

"Triceratops!

"Sabertooth Tiger!"

"Tyrannosaurs!"

"POWER RANGERS!" They all cry out together. The criminals just stare at them with confused looks on their faces and they shrug their shoulders.

"I told you starting to do this would be silly, Black Ranger," Kimberly mutters to Zack.

"Hey, there's no point in being a superhero if you can't have some fun it," he mutters back.

"Can it you two. Ok, Blade Blasters!" Jason calls out. The Rangers place their hands beside their hips and gun holsters materialize on them. They pull out their blasters and take aim. "Stun Mode on!" One of the thieves reacts first and forms a ball of fire in his hand, which he throws at Jason. Jason jumps up and kicks the ball away from him. "FIRE!" He orders.

They fire their weapons, but the thieves dodge the blasts with a surprising swiftness and rush the group. Jason jumps at two of them and drives his knees into their chests knocking them down. They both leap back up to their feet holding balls of fire in their hands. Jason dodges the first attack and knocks away the other attacker's flame ball. A sword of gold materializes in the first thief's hands and he slashes at Jason's back. He lets out a grunt, but turns and delivers a kick to the man's face sending him crashing onto the hood of a car.

Trini's dodges her opponents punches and kicks like it's boring for her. She chuckles and grabs the man's arm and flips him onto his back. She fires her blaster only for him to roll out of the way and kick Trini's feet out from under her. She falls to his level and he starts to get back up, but she locks her legs around his left leg and pulls him back down to the pavement. She blasts him in the face stunning him.

"One down!" She calls out.

"And five to go!" Billy replies driving his elbow into the stomach of his opponent. "Really sorry about how much that is going to hurt in the morning!" He apologizes, but then someone else jumps onto his back knocking Billy to the street. The thief forms his own gold sword and drives it down at Billy's head, but Billy moves his head to the right dodging it, grabs the man's arm and tosses him off his back, then finishes it with a blast to the criminal's own back.

"Hey, that was my criminal!" Zack shouts and gets hit in the face.

"And that's mine," Kimberly laughs.

"Shut up!" Zack groans while stopping the man's next punch and pulling him into a neck hold. Kim aims and fires hitting the man's stomach making him go limp in Zack's arms. "Hey Pink!" He starts to warn, but Kim, without even looking, throws a punch behind her hitting the thief in the face. "Never mind," Zack says and Kim blasts the guy.

Meanwhile Jason clashes his own sword with one of his opponent's while taking aim at the other. He fires off several shots, but the thief blocks each of them and throws a fireball at Jason's feet. The ground blows up under him knocking him into the air and into the side of a car. The two remaining thieves cut their losses and start to run from the fight, but the other four Rangers land in their paths to cut them off.

"You know, you probably should've thought about running before trying to fight us," Billy points out. The two of them take a fighting stance to continue the battle, but two laser blasts fly through the air and hit them in their backs bringing them down to the ground.

"Nice shot!" Trini compliments Jason as he pulls himself up.

"Thanks, but I shouldn't have been caught off guard like that," he chastises himself. "We're lucky you all already defeated the others or we could've lost those two."

"Hey, don't feel bad," Billy says. "You were fighting two at once. Odds are you'd be at a slight disadvantage."

Jason laughs. "Thanks for trying to cheer me up. I mean that."

"You can't tell, but I'm smiling under my helmet," Billy says and the others join in their laughter while dragging the unconscious criminals together.

"Billy, if you will."

"On it, Jason." Billy holds his blaster up to his helmet. "Containment mode." His blaster changes in size and design forming a large container at the back. It resembles less a blaster and more a water gun. He aims it at the teens and pulls the trigger.

Their bodies all start to shake as if an earthquake is occurring beneath them as golden liquid starts to flow out of their eyes and enters Billy's gun. He finishes extracting the gold from the group and takes the container off his weapon. He places it next to his hip and the container merges into part of his suit. He changes his weapon back into its blaster mode and merges it with his suit as well. With nothing else to do, the Rangers take a seat on the street and wait for the rest of Angel Grove's police department to arrive.

"So, the remnants of Goldar are starting to infect teenagers now? Can't decide if we should feel flattered by the imitation or not," Billy says as they wait.

"I don't get why he didn't just infect the entire town to start off," Zack wonders.

"I'll be sure to ask him that if we ever see him in the flesh again," Trini replies.

"There's nothing for him to gain from putting himself back together though. We literally bitch slapped Rita into orbit. No amount of life giving energy from the Zeo Crystal can bring someone back from that," Kimberly says.

"Let's keep a good thought about that," Jason says looking up to the stars. Another minute passes and the police finally arrive.

"Red Ranger," the sheriff acknowledges.

"Sheriff, you need to get these people to the hospital at once. They're six more victims of the gold fever." The sheriff nods to Jason and motions for the paramedics to attend to the teenagers.

"These attacks have been getting more and more frequent this past month. Any guesses as to what it means?" The Sheriff asks.

"We can only guess that the monster infecting everyone doesn't have much time left," Billy speculates. "If he can't find more gold to sustain himself soon, he'll die."

"Well soon can't come soon enough," the Sheriff sighs observing the damage to the store. "Thanks for all you did, Rangers."

"It's always a pleasure," Kimberly replies to him.

"Alright, let's go team." Jason and the others place their hands on their Dino Coins and disappear from sight.

 **To Be Continued...**

 **A/N: So I haven't decided yet how many of Rita's old henchmen from the show will be her own like Goldar and which will instead be under Zedd's command. I just decided to put Finster with Zedd since Rita could apparently make Putties and Goldar on her own in the new film. Like I said, I hope you enjoyed this and I'll see you next chapter.**


	2. Better Prepared

**A/N: Hey everyone. I want to say thanks for the reviews, favs, and follows this story got in its first chapter. :) This chapter is admittedly short, but I didn't want to keep you all waiting forever for another update. Hope you enjoy!**

In a bright flash of light, the Rangers teleport into their base of operations; each standing on the platform with their respective color on it.

"Welcome back, Rangers," Alpha greets them.

"Hi Alpha," Billy responds. He extracts the container of Goldar's essence from his suit and tosses it to Alpha, which he catches.

"Hm, you've got just a teensy bit more in here than you normally do," Alpha observes.

"Goldar infected six people instead of the usual five," Kimberly relays as the team's armor disappears from their bodies.

"Using only teenagers to boot this time. Guess no one told him that copying what works for the heroes doesn't work for the villains because, you know, they're villains," Zack jokes.

"I wouldn't say that Zack," Jason comments.

"Are you still on about two of them briefly catching you off guard?" Trini asks. "Newsflash, that's bound to happen when fighting people with greater numbers."

"Hell, when Goldar first started infecting the town, he used like 20 people against us and we still came out on top. Don't forget that was before we got access to some of the weapons and powers we have now."

"The fact that we're more prepared further proves that we shouldn't get caught off guard by small things like this," Jason states. He approaches the center of the base and the Morphin Grid energy manifests itself in the color red. "We're stepping our training up this week, team. Try and get more in touch with the Grid and see what other powers we might have beyond teleportation and our blasters."

"Yeah, like maybe our own personal weapons. How come you're the only one that can call on a power weapon right now?" Zack asks.

"Because I'm the leader," Jason quips.

The other Rangers laugh and approach the center of the room as well; the grid energy shifting to their respective colors. Within the colors, Billy notices the faintest traces of green.

"You know, it's too bad that we sent Rita into orbit before taking back the Green Power Coin. Another Ranger could be pretty beneficial to us."

"It's for the best that the coin is long gone actually," Alpha says.

"Why?" Jason asks.

"Because," Zordon begins appearing in the wall in front of the Rangers. "Rita's evil nature severely corrupted the coin's ties to the Grid. If someone else were to get their hands on it, there's no telling what would happen to them."

"Nothing good," Kimberly says.

"Ay yi yi," Alpha sighs. " _Obviously_ 'nothing good' would happen. The point is that we don't specifically know what and I'd rather _not_ find out. Thankfully that black hole Rita was sucked into dumped her into a galaxy far, _far_ , away." The Rangers all snicker when Alpha says this. "What? What's so funny?"

"Nothing, nothing at all," Kimberly laughs.

"Ay yi yi," Alpha groans again and runs a hand down his face.

"Changing the subject, how's your latest project going, Billy?" Kimberly asks.

"The Morphers? They're coming along. Slowly, but eventually surely," he replies.

"How long have you and Alpha been working on those things?" Zack asks.

"A few months."

"And you still aren't finished?"

"Uh, no. We're talking about containing our powers in what are essentially glorified belt buckles by connecting them to a mysterious and unpredictable source of power that no one, not even Zordon, fully understands."

"I still don't think this is a good idea, Billy," Trini says to him.

"I don't know about you Trini, but I'd rather not be super human 24/7," Kimberly says.

"Maybe you'll see things my way when one of the forces of evil breaks into your room while you're asleep." Trini runs a hand over the scars from Rita's attack as she says this.

"Oh Trini. I'm so sorry," Kimberly apologizes placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. Trini places her hand over Kim's and gives her a half smile.

"I get where you're coming from, Trini. I'm just trying to make this whole secret identity thing easier for us," Billy explains.

"If it helps, Trini, the odds of the Morphers actually working is low. Like considerably low," Alpha says earning a look of disbelief from Billy. "What? A Ranger's power was never designed to be turned on and off. It's a part of you."

"We can worry about this later. Right now, let's all go home before our parents start to wonder where we are," Jason says.

"Or the cops in your case," Zack chuckles as the team moves out.

"That's old news. Quit bringing it up," Jason orders.

"Maybe," Zack laughs again.

"Boys," Kimberly sighs heading for the exit. Trini laughs and puts her arm around Kimberly's shoulder; her doing the same in return as they leave.

"I'll be with you guys in a moment," Billy calls out to them.

"Alright. We'll be waiting for you by the exit," Jason replies. Once the doors shut behind the four of them, Billy turns his attention back to the Grid and its swirling rainbow of colors.

"Zordon, do you know who created the Power Coins?" Billy asks.

"No," Zordon answers. "Whomever it was, they and the coins existed long before I came to be."

"Still, if the coins were actually made by someone, then maybe we could try our luck at making one of our own since we can't get back Rita's."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down there, partner," Alpha says. "Your Morpher idea is pushing things already. If you try and tinker with the Grid too much, well, I can guarantee _'nothing good'_ will happen."

"Can you?"

"Um, ok, I can 90% guarantee nothing good will happen." Billy looks somewhat dejected that his idea was turned down.

"Billy," Zordon says. "I appreciate you attempting to think up new ways to help your friends, but I have full confidence that you five are all that we need to keep the Earth safe."

"Thanks Zordon, but you never know what could happen. I was able to locate the Zeo Crystal on my own."

"Finding an important object and messing with the laws of nature are two vastly different things, Billy," Alpha points out.

"I know, I know. I'll keep my focus on the Morphers for now, but I am gonna come back to this eventually. I'll see you both later." Billy waves to the two and jogs out the exit to the central room.

"Humans. Such odd creatures," Alpha says once he leaves.

"I would say being 'odd' is working out fine for them," Zordon says.

"I guess so. I just hope that will be enough to take on what other dark forces come here in search of the Zeo crystal."

"As do I, Alpha. As do I."


End file.
